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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26190853">Leave Me, Leave Me (Just Say That You Need Me)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harmako/pseuds/Harmako'>Harmako</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>What Could Have Been (Or What We Might Have Had) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Xenoblade Chronicles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Modification, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Honestly a lot more angst than necessary, Light Angst, Missing Scene(?), Spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles, a bit of a sad ending, no beta we die like men</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:08:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,568</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26190853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harmako/pseuds/Harmako</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She had to be strong, fearless and brave. Ready to face the danger that came looming in now from all sides. Dependable and positive when she needed to be. She had to be a person her friends could rely on. She had to be <i>Fiora</i>, the Fiora everyone thought she was.</p><p>It took all of her strength to keep up that facade.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>What Could Have Been (Or What We Might Have Had) [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1835419</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Leave Me, Leave Me (Just Say That You Need Me)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ooh boy, this series is really just turning into "I write about Fiora being sad 100 times."<br/>It’s probably pretty obvious at this point, but Fiora is my favourite character in Xenoblade Chronicles, and I have a lot to say about her and what she went through.<br/>This fic is loosely inspired by a post I saw ages ago about how the game would never let Fiora say something meaningful and/or confess the fear that had possessed her throughout the story, because man, it was there. This is probably a lot more angsty and over exaggerated than it should be, but that’s what I write best! I applaud you if you manage to get through it, lol.</p><p>This fic takes place right before Melia speaks to Fiora outside of Colony 6, before Shulk wakes up. The cutscene played during the night for me, so that’s the time I wrote it in!</p><p>While it is totally optional, I recommend that you read my other fic, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348342">A Second Chance (Don’t Say Goodbye)</a>, before this one to help get a better sense of what I’ve already explored of Fiora and her "death"!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fiora would never let it show, but she was afraid.<br/>
The truth was that she had always been scared, <i>terrified</i>, right from the moment she had awoken in her new, foreign body. The body of a machine.</p><p>No. That wasn’t right.</p><p>She had been afraid right from the moment the Mechon had descended upon Colony 9.<br/>
The moment when she had realized nothing would ever be the same again.</p><p>She had felt that ever-present fear even when she had fully regained control of her mechanical body, on that deserted beach on the Fallen Arm, even if she knew that the other soul to inhabit it meant her no harm.</p><p>Nothing could compare to the pain, the fear and the loss Fiora had experienced in her death, if the ordeal could even be called as such. She had tried to be brave, for herself, for her friends, and for Shulk. She had conditioned herself to be an optimist, to hope that she would see her loved ones again. </p><p>Truthfully, that fear had never gone away. It had shaken Fiora to her very core, even as she had learned of her new body, of Meyneth, and of her friends’ survival.</p><p>She had tried to hide that lingering fear from the prying eyes of Shulk, and from the eyes of her friends, as they travelled up Mechonis, and, for the most part, it had worked.</p><p>She had to be strong, fearless and brave. Ready to face the danger that came looming in now from all sides. Dependable and positive when she needed to be. She had to be the group’s stability, their hope. She had to be a person her friends could rely on. She had to be <i>Fiora,</i> the Fiora everyone thought she was.</p><p>It took all of her strength to keep up that facade.</p><p>She had excused herself from the crowded and anxious environment of Junks, the Machina ship, stating that she needed some air, and now found herself looking up at the moon, hardly a sliver in the indigo sky, from the safety of Colony 6’s walls. </p><p>It had been a poor excuse, and Dunban had given her a look as if to say <i>we’re going to talk about this later</i>—but she had been grateful that her brother hadn’t pressed the issue right then.</p><p>Although things were far from perfect, for the first time since they had confronted Egil, Fiora allowed herself to breathe.</p><p>
  <i>Egil. Zanza.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Meyneth.</i>
</p><p>Somewhere along the line, Fiora had grown to care for Meyneth.<br/>
She was not sure when, but from the minute she had awoken in her newly constructed body, confused and terrified, Fiora had known that she was not alone.<br/>
She had known that the other part of her, the part she now knew as Meyneth, meant her no harm.<br/>
She had come to understand the Goddess and her ideals, her conviction and her desire to fight, through foreign thoughts and feelings.<br/>
Meyneth had been fighting for them, for Fiora, for her friends, for the Machina and for all of Bionis and Mechonis.</p><p>She had fought and died protecting them from Zanza—protecting Shulk—and Fiora wondered whether or not that act had been one final thank you, a desire to save Shulk’s life stemming from Fiora’s lingering consciousness. Or, maybe, like Fiora, she had believed in Shulk’s ability to save the world she cared so dearly for.<br/>
Perhaps Meyneth had come to care for Fiora like Fiora had cared for her. </p><p>What Fiora had said to Vanea during Junk’s frantic departure to the Mechonis’ Core had been the truth:</p><p>
  <i>“Actually, I’m grateful. Thanks to this body, I got to see Shulk and the others again. I know how much Meyneth cares about this world… and that’s why I’m happy to let her use my body.”</i>
</p><p>Fiora had needed Meyneth, and Meyneth had needed Fiora. That much was certain.</p><p>Without Meyneth, Fiora was an empty shell, a failing body supporting a broken soul.</p><p>Fiora was dying.</p><p>It was not an exaggeration. Without Meyneth’s Monado to power her Mechon body, Fiora was not sure how much time she had left. Her systems were slowly failing, running on fumes leftover from Meyneth. She found that, although it saddened her, she did not fear true death. Not anymore. </p><p>The true Fiora had died in Colony 9, ripped from the world by Metal Face’s claws. That is what she told herself.</p><p>But even then, fate had given her a second chance.<br/>
Not fate, but Meyneth. The goddess had given her life in death, an opportunity to see the ones she loved again. Fiora would not let that gift go to waste. She had made a promise to herself, a promise to Meyneth and to Shulk.</p><p>
  <i>Shulk.</i>
</p><p>While Fiora had felt like she was suffocating in Junks’ cramped cockpit, surrounded by her anxious friends, the real reason she had quickly taken her leave was far simpler.<br/>
She had needed to step away from Shulk, from his prone form lying lifelessly on Linada’s operating table.<br/>
She just couldn’t stand seeing him like that.</p><p>She couldn’t stand not knowing whether or not he would ever wake up again.</p><p>And if he didn’t, what would she do? Shulk had been her reason to continue, her reason to fight, to push back her fear, her pain. When Fiora had awoken in a strange new world with a strange new body, she had thought of Shulk. When Fiora had fought for control in a vessel she shared with someone else, she had thought of Shulk. When she had thought of giving up, of giving into despair, Shulk had been her reason to press on.</p><p>To press on, and on, and on, a saying Fiora had always lived by.</p><p>Without Shulk, Fiora had no reason to keep living. Not like this.</p><p>Guilt prickled at her as she thought this, for there were her friends, too. Her brother. Reyn, Dunban, Sharla, Melia, and Riki. She trusted them with her life, her heart and soul. They were a team now, the world’s last hope. They needed her.</p><p>But Fiora didn’t think she could handle losing Shulk, not again. It pained her to even imagine it for a moment. How would she muster the strength to face Zanza without Shulk by her side? How would any of them?</p><p>Would they hate her if she told them the truth? That she couldn’t, wouldn’t, go on without Shulk? </p><p>Deep down, Fiora knew that Shulk would want her to. He would want her to continue on, even without him. After all, it wasn’t as if he had the Monado anymore.<br/>
But Fiora didn’t think Shulk needed the Monado to save the world. She believed in him, they all did. There was a reason they’d gotten this far, and it couldn’t <i>just</i> be because of the Monado. </p><p>Fiora chuckled sadly to herself. It was so easy to imagine having this conversation with Shulk.</p><p>She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her metallic hands around her shins. Examining the silicon joints, blue wires and steel panels that made up her body, she was once again reminded of how her days were numbered.<br/>
How she wished Shulk would round the corner of the Colony’s walls, would come to sit beside her and tell her everything would be okay.</p><p>A dependency such as this wasn’t always great, she knew that. Shulk should not be her only reason to continue living.<br/>
But she couldn’t help it. She needed him.<br/>
And it was more than that… Fiora felt that she might not deserve him.<br/>
Her late night conversation with Sharla in the Hidden Village suddenly came to mind again, and she thought of Melia. The High Entian girl was so brave, stronger than Fiora would ever be. She’d watched her father die, her city crumble, and her brother and friends as they became terrifying monsters before her eyes—and yet still she remained resolute. </p><p>Melia was courageous, kind and beautiful. Fiora liked her. She thought that Melia was the kind of person Shulk deserved to be with, certainly not Fiora. Fiora was a lost cause, clinging to a life she’d already lost.</p><p>Her thoughts slowly spiralling into despair, she sank lower down the wall and buried her face in her hands. </p><p>
  <i>I’m sorry, Meyneth. It seems that I’ve hardly done anything meaningful in the life you gifted to me. I’m already desperate to leave it behind.</i>
</p><p>Soft footsteps sounded at the top of the stairs, up around the corner of the Colony’s walls, jolting her out of her head.<br/>
Dunban must have come looking for her.</p><p>She wiped a hand across her face, rising from being curled in on herself, a position that would’ve caused her legs and back to ache had she been back in her old body. She craved what it had been like back then, back in Colony 9, when she felt free, able to express her fear and her joy without repercussion.</p><p>Fiora stood at the base of the stone steps, and she waited.</p><p>She waited for Dunban, or whoever had come to get her, to appear at the top of the stairs.</p><p>She waited for Shulk to wake up.</p><p>She waited for the day when this was all over.</p><p>She waited for the day when she no longer had to feel afraid.</p><p>Even if that meant she was gone, and there was nothing left to be afraid of.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much for reading, kudos + comments are greatly appreciated &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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